I'm Coding A Game, And This Time I Hope I'll Finish It.

 

Sleepdrifter's Newsletter #19📜 The Most Time Consuming Type Of Project Ever, Live Shows, Tattoos And More

Welcome to Sleepdrifter’s newsletter, now coming to you every other Friday.
Deep forests, giant mountains & weird dungeons.
I speak about TTRPGs, video games, music and what I like.

Find My Games Here

Last week was a musical newsletter. This week I’ll speak about something I’m truly passionate about: making games (or trying to).
I know that this is not something that’ll speak to everyone, because you are probably here as a fan of the TTRPG hobby, but as this is taking me so much time of my life, I find it a bummer to not share this with you.
I hope you’ll like it anyway.

Thanks a lot for reading me nonetheless, it means the world to me.

Summary

1. 🕹️Coding A Video Game: The Most Time Consuming Type Of Project Ever + Free Tools

2. 🧙🏼‍♂️What I’m Up To: More Live Shows (Including Castle Rat), Tattoos And Games I’ve Played

🕹️Coding A Video Game: The Most Time Consuming Type Of Project Ever + Free Tools

I kind of had fun remaking my own banner for this

Some weeks ago, I spoke about how I love coding games, but how I never finish them, either because the prototype shows that the idea was only good on paper, or because the idea was too big to make.
So I was struggling to find a good idea and a doable idea. I have only one goal in mind: make and finish a video game.

By myself, I have already finished some TTRPG projects (Check out my games here on itch.io, they are all free, shameless_add.png) and even musical albums. Both are quite complicated to create and release, but none are as hard to make as video games.
Picture it for a brief moment: you need to know how to code, you need to know how to make art, how to make sound, and how to make music. You need to know game design, maybe level design, how to polish stuff, how to craft all of the systems you have in mind for your project. That’s a lot!

So, when you start something like that, you’d better be ready. And ready am I, because I started to try making games since I was a teen. I’ve learned coding in an IT school, I’ve learned music all my life, and for some years now, I’ve learned some game engines, like Godot, pixel-art and sound design.
But I missed the most crucial thing: a game idea.

I got a google doc full of ideas, for all the niches I’m into (TTRPGs, music, video games, etc.). But none of the ideas in it seem finishable and doable at the moment.
I have a full time job, a Surf Rock band and a newsletter to write, I’m a busy man you know!
And one day, something hit my mind.

I was on my computer, brainstorming different ideas, struggling to be really creative and I briefly thought about a cool Flash game I loved years ago: The Last Stand.

A screenshot from the game The Last Stand

The Last Stand is a game made by Chris Condon, that quickly turned into a full Flash game series, then into a bigger series with other games released on Steam.
The first episode design was really simple: you are a survivor defending barricades while zombies charge at you. You shoot, kill and survive.
Each day, you can spend 12 hours on different activities: finding weapons, finding survivors or repairing your barricades.
At night, you shoot and shoot again.

And this was something simple. I decided to make a game like that, but with the weird eagle eye/top down view that you can find on games like Darkwood or even Hotline Miami.

Darkwood Screenshot

I quickly began to code and to make a fully playable prototype, with free assets and no sounds, just to try the whole gameplay.
It was fun and quick to make, and I already got a solid structure to expand on.

That’s why, I started to make more.
Inspired by Roguelites like Balatro, Vampire Survivor or even by games like Stardew Valley, I started to envision what the game can be: a true Roguelite Arcade Shooter, with things to unlock, upgrades to buy, lots of different weapons, enemies and most important lots of fun.

An early alpha screenshot from my game. This is very very far from being finish so be kind!

I’ve been coding it for a few days/weeks now, and I’m having a blast.
When I get tired of coding, I’m making pixel art (even though I suck at it), when I’m tired of that, I polish stuff to get a cool game feel (particle effects, lights and small animations).
I won’t go into explaining how the game is played at the moment, as it is in a very very early phase, but I hope I can make it as cool to play as I envision. I want it fun, juicy and kind of addictive (in a good way).

And of course: I want to finish it.
A commonly known game development quote is: “If you think you’ll make it in one week, you’ll make it in one month. If you think you’ll make it in one month, you’ll make it in one year”. And I think I’ll make it in one year or so (As I thought I could make it in one or 2 months).

A moving blob I made. It move towards the player like this. Sorry for the crappy resolution, this is an upscaled version of the 16x16 original sprite.

My biggest struggle, despite coding complicated stuff, is making pixel-art. I’m more confident now than a year ago, but this is still pretty amateurish. Yet I try to keep it clean, with some color theory and a well-chosen color palette. This makes it better to the eyes, and homogeneous.

I’ll probably keep you updated on how it goes in future newsletters.
I would love to be that guy releasing devlog videos about it, but I’m always too slow at making stuff like that, or too busy (probably both).

If you are interested in game development, or want to try it yourself, just go for it.
I’m using only free and open-source tools to create.

• As a game engine, Godot is perfect. It can create 3D or 2D games with a professional quality. Also, the game you develop is 100% yours at the end with no mandatory fees (check Unity or Unreal license, you’ll be surprised). It has tons of tutorials and a great documentation + an awesome community.

• For pixel-art production, you’ll read that Aseprite is the best, which it is. But it has a free open-source fork called Libresprite which is already great. I don’t use it but Krita is also a good companion for free art making.

• For music and sound production I will use Ableton Live which is definitely not free, but I’m a musician and composer, so I already got a lot of pro/semi-pro stuff at home. But you can find various free tools like Audacity (not the best, but simple to use), Reaper (not 100% free but you can already make a lot without paying something) and GarageBand (only available on Apple system though)

Keep creating things the way you want. Art is for everyone.

🧙🏼‍♂️What I’m Up To: More Live Shows (Including Castle Rat), Tattoos And Games I’ve Played

Westill Festival Poster

Now that I speak a lot about my video game project, let’s speak about music.

Last newsletter was about The Dark Dungeon Festival and last week-end, I went to a fest near where I live: Westill Festival in Vallet.
You probably can’t put this small French town on a map, but this is very close to a much bigger festival: Hellfest, in Clisson.
Westill Festival is a Stoner/Doom/Heavy/Post Rock and Metal festival. It was its ninth edition with bands like Graveyard, Elder and Orange Goblin as headliners.

It was very hard to get into the shows due to some personal issues I won’t explain here, but, as usual at Westill, bands were awesome. My favorite three were Castle Rat (love the show even if I was a bit too far away), Elder and Wytch Hazel.
I have already seen Elder in small venues multiple times, but I wish I can see Wytch Hazel and even more Castle Rat on small gigs.

Enfant De Minuit’s tattoo flash

This edition was also the second one where my SO worked as a Tattoo Artist.
She’s called Enfant De Minuit (Moonlight Child in Mr Beast’s language) and makes amazing folk/witchy/moody tattoos. Her inspirations are various: Fantasy, Dark art, Horror and weird Folk stuff.

You can find her Instagram here, she’d be more than thankful if you can follow her! 😉

She’ll soon be on the road to tattoo in different French cities!

Stardew Valley Screenshot

These last two weeks, I’ve played way less, because I was coding more.

So here are the three games I’ve played:

• Stardew Valley (Switch) : This is one of my favorite games since it’s initial released on PC. I love the vibe, its coziness, the music, the colors, everything. It has tons of activities you can do and despite quickly turning into big farming management if you’re greedy, you can have a comfy time planting stuff, fishing, mining and speaking to the town’s people. I spoke about game creation just above, and this game was made by a single person. Truly a gem.

• Stalker 2 (Xbox Series) : After talking about one of my favorite games, I’ll talk about another. The whole Stalker series is something I truly love. Everything appeals to me. I love post-apocalyptic vibe, grim stuff and horror. This blends everything. The setting is simple: Tchernobyl, weird artefacts and anomalies everywhere. If you are curious about trying Stalker without spending too much, just go on GOG and try Stalker G.A.M.M.A, a huge free mod that gets a lot of stuff (even more than this second opus) and it doesn’t need any official Stalker, so it’s a full standalone. But be prepared, this is a hard game.
  Otherwise, if you are more of a reader than a player, the Stalker book, also called Roadside Picnic, is one of my favorite Sci-Fi books. The setting is kind of different but with a similar vibe.

• Balatro (Android) : If you are into drugs like heroïn and cocaïne, you should add Balatro to your list. “Joke” aside, this is an addictive Roguelite game, where you play what seems to be a poker game. You’ll quickly understand that this is way more than that. With a lot of different combos and synergies, this game is a masterpiece in game design. I play it on my phone, but this is available on almost any platform.

That’s it for this week!
Let me know if you enjoyed this article, if you played/read/watch any of the stuff I mentioned this week 😀

See you!

Cheers !
Sleepdrifter

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